Holland would be stupid to sign Weber to an offer sheet this summer. Poile would just match it. NEXT summer is when Kenny will go after Weber. Kenny's 3 steps to getting the Wings back to the Cup are...Parise. Suter. Weber. 2 of the 3 happen this summer and the last one happens next summer. Think of the A TEAM. I love it when a plan comes together.

Holland would be stupid to sign Weber to an offer sheet this summer. Poile would just match it. NEXT summer is when Kenny will go after Weber. Kenny's 3 steps to getting the Wings back to the Cup are...Parise. Suter. Weber. 2 of the 3 happen this summer and the last one happens next summer. Think of the A TEAM. I love it when a plan comes together.

That all depends on whether or not Weber re-signs long term or just a one year...then again, and hold on to your mouse, ANOTHER team could tender an offer to Weber as RFA and Nashville could match or let him go for 4 fist rounders, I think they match no matter what especially if they lose Suter! If Weber only signs a 1 year deal, I think that it shows how much players want to NOT play in Nashville...remember, just last July Nashville offered their #1 defenseman $4.5M a year before an arbitrator awarded him $7.5M...he already knows how Poile works, he may just sign a one year (or go to arbitration again) and bid adieu next summer...

That all depends on whether or not Weber re-signs long term or just a one year...then again, and hold on to your mouse, ANOTHER team could tender an offer to Weber as RFA and Nashville could match or let him go for 4 fist rounders, I think they match no matter what especially if they lose Suter! If Weber only signs a 1 year deal, I think that it shows how much players want to NOT play in Nashville...remember, just last July Nashville offered their #1 defenseman $4.5M a year before an arbitrator awarded him $7.5M...he already knows how Poile works, he may just sign a one year (or go to arbitration again) and bid adieu next summer...

I compare Weber to Suter and Parise. If all 3 of these players wanted to stay with their current teams, then they would have signed long term contract extensions a long time ago. The fact that none of them have done that speaks volumes. Actions speak louder than words. Weber's actions are that he wants no part of staying long term with Nashville. Of course his agent is likely telling him not to say this. He has to pretend that he is interested in staying and that it is a possibility. He can't come out and say I WANT OUT OF HERE NOW! When he still has another season to play in Nashville.

Even if a team offered Weber an offer sheet, I can't see him signing it. Because he knows that Poile would match it. There is no way Poile will take 4 1st round picks back for Weber. That is nowhere near his value. Poile could trade Weber this summer or during the season however this does not mean Weber will be staying there long term. As of right now, he is set to become a UFA on July 1st, 2013. That is the only date I am looking at with regard to the Wings possibly having a crack at acquiring Weber. All this offer sheet stuff is a waste of time. It will not happen.

....Come on guy, do I really need to tell you to go back and read the comment again?We all know what he was saying.... A fair analogy would have been Souray/Stuart/Boyle/Carkner. By your logic we should be calling Smith a Konstantinov/Lidstrom/Chelios combo cause he can hit, has offensive sense, and a little mean streak....Even though we all know Smith is not comparable to either of those 3 players or the skills they possessed.

My point was...Lidstrom can't fight and blow people off their skates. Fifteen years from now, Lidstrom and Weber will be labeled as two of the best defensemen ever to play the game. I doubt our 3 future first round picks will ever be that good. Weber is a proven commodity...the future 3 first rounders are not...

In the first 6 years Lidstrom had 60 goals, Weber had 97 goals on an average Nashville team. Both are great and accomplish their business in different ways. Lidstrom would prefer to poke-check, Weber prefers to check.

My point is... Anyone close to the ability of Lidstrom is worth 3 first rounders!!!!!

My point was...Lidstrom can't fight and blow people off their skates. Fifteen years from now, Lidstrom and Weber will be labeled as two of the best defensemen ever to play the game. I doubt our 3 future first round picks will ever be that good. Weber is a proven commodity...the future 3 first rounders are not...

In the first 6 years Lidstrom had 60 goals, Weber had 97 goals on an average Nashville team. Both are great and accomplish their business in different ways. Lidstrom would prefer to poke-check, Weber prefers to check.

My point is... Anyone close to the ability of Lidstrom is worth 3 first rounders!!!!!

Hey I am a Canadian and I love Weber as a Canadian born dman who will be representing Team Canada for the next decade. But until he wins 4 Stanley Cups, a Conn Smythe trophy and 7 Norris Trophies, he cannot compare to Lidstrom. Weber may indeed may end up accomplishing alot in his career but then again he may not. We don't know that yet. I agree that Weber is worth giving up 3 1st round picks. He IS that good. But IMO he will never be in Lidstrom's league as one of the best dman to ever play the game. I mean we are talking about which dmen are the best of ALL TIME not which dmen are the best currently. Weber has a LONG way to go to even apprpach Lidstrom's awesome legacy of greatness. Will Weber play 20 seasons in the NHL as a top pairing dman? Maybe. Maybe not.

Knowledgeable?. Most of them want to get rid of our 2 top goal scorers, there was debate here as to if the OHL is better than the NCAA. Some people saying that we don't draft well and don't have good prospectsI don't want to blow this team up, I like em all, even our top 2 goal scorersYou know except for Hudler and Weber I generally agree about most things with you. Why cna';t you just agree to disagree about these 2 things?

I promise you that it's not most people lol once you spend some time here you'll see that the crazies come and go and that most people on this forum who stick around have a lot of hockey sense. Problem with Hudler is he going to be overpaid this year and we can't have overpaid players on this team. Would love to have him stay, but we all know money is on his agenda. And it's just dumb pursuing Weber this year giving up 4 first rounders, when he will be UFA next year and we won't have t give up any.

My point was...Lidstrom can't fight and blow people off their skates. Fifteen years from now, Lidstrom and Weber will be labeled as two of the best defensemen ever to play the game. I doubt our 3 future first round picks will ever be that good. Weber is a proven commodity...the future 3 first rounders are not...

In the first 6 years Lidstrom had 60 goals, Weber had 97 goals on an average Nashville team. Both are great and accomplish their business in different ways. Lidstrom would prefer to poke-check, Weber prefers to check.

My point is... Anyone close to the ability of Lidstrom is worth 3 first rounders!!!!!

Forgot you know how things will pan out 15 years down the road. I would give up 3 first rounders for another Lidstrom...but one doesn't exist...We've seen about 3 Lidstrom caliber players over about the last 100 years....Weber would take 4 first rounders and is currently one of the best defenseman, but a legendary D-man? NO

Thank you so much for your incredibly thoughtful and insightful message. In all my years of being the Wings' GM I've never once not made the focal point of my team its defense. I've always over-invested in goaltending and offense first, because so many other teams have won the amount of Cups the Wings have solely based on that recipe.

Now this off-season one of the greatest defenseman of all time has retired and we inevitably lost another of our top 4. On top of that, I've got $20+ million to spend, and you figured this was the moment in time I would pick to stop putting every single effort into our defense first??? Due to your message, I'm now awake. I won't try to sign every single offensive UFA first. Thank you for stopping me from making the biggest mistake of my career. I couldn't have done it without you.

I understand that... but the Preds will have to pay Weber $8.5m instead of $7.5m. This will put Nashville in a bad place, because if they don't match it....Weber is a Wing. If they do match, then they have $1m less to work with in a small market.

Thank you so much for your incredibly thoughtful and insightful message. In all my years of being the Wings' GM I've never once not made the focal point of my team its defense. I've always over-invested in goaltending and offense first, because so many other teams have won the amount of Cups the Wings have solely based on that recipe.

Now this off-season one of the greatest defenseman of all time has retired and we inevitably lost another of our top 4. On top of that, I've got $20+ million to spend, and you figured this was the moment in time I would pick to stop putting every single effort into our defense first??? Due to your message, I'm now awake. I won't try to sign every single offensive UFA first. Thank you for stopping me from making the biggest mistake of my career. I couldn't have done it without you.

Yours Truly,Ken Holland

This post is classless and not nearly as intelligent as you had hoped. Normally, I wouldn't care, but Mods shouldn't be taking personal attacks against other posters.And big deal, he would prefer Weber over Suter. So would I. Can you ask Ken Holland to send me a sarcastic letter?

This post is classless and not nearly as intelligent as you had hoped. Normally, I wouldn't care, but Mods shouldn't be taking personal attacks against other posters.And big deal, he would prefer Weber over Suter. So would I. Can you ask Ken Holland to send me a sarcastic letter?

You don't find it a bit curious that the OP is asking Ken Holland to do something anyone in their right mind already knows he's gonna do? The thing that frustrates me is why does this OP believe that Holland would do anything but his proven recipe in this offseason, which just so happens to be the most devastating one he's had to deal with.

While it may be a tough-love post, the fact of the matter is that we continue to hear from members that state Holland is an idiot, Holland sucks, I could run this team better....and they get downright annoying, especially when the OP is stating the obvious.

This post is classless and not nearly as intelligent as you had hoped. Normally, I wouldn't care, but Mods shouldn't be taking personal attacks against other posters.And big deal, he would prefer Weber over Suter. So would I. Can you ask Ken Holland to send me a sarcastic letter?

I hate to burst your self-righteous bubble, but there's no personal attack in here. It is, however, oozing sarcasm, which last I checked wasn't against forum guidelines.

I do agree that if the Wings sign Suter, that makes the thought of Weber being a Wing even more distasteful to the Preds, if that's at all possible. They will break the bank to keep him, not having learned from Columbus' mistake.

This post is classless and not nearly as intelligent as you had hoped. Normally, I wouldn't care, but Mods shouldn't be taking personal attacks against other posters.And big deal, he would prefer Weber over Suter. So would I. Can you ask Ken Holland to send me a sarcastic letter?

Classless and personal attack??? really? I just don't see it at all.

It was a sarcastic post for an OP like many of you on here that think after all we have lost that Holland is just going to sit on his hands and let the team stay like it is and not try for anything....Do you guys really believe that? Really?

The Preds have $38M in cap space, a handful of decent roleplayers already signed for cheap, and a few more that should be cheap to re-sign. They are prefectly capable of paying Weber $10M+ and still filling out a decent roster in the $55-60M range. You're not going to hurt them by forcing them to pay a little more than they want.

Giving up 4 firsts isn't just giving up 4 players we could protentially draft. It's also giving up the ability to trade those picks in the future. Between that and needing to significantly overpay to get him, you sacrifice a lot of flexibility. If he didn't mesh well with our system, or other holes in the lineup appear, we could still end up out of the playoffs...possibly giving up one or more top-10 picks. Maybe not likely, but it's a big risk to take for the right to overpay someone.

I'll say again, the RFA system is designed to very heaviliy favor the team owning the RFA rights. It gives a little bargaining power to the player, but little risk of the team losing its young assets. Offer sheets are very, very rarely worth making. It would have to be a team unable to match a fair offer or a player that the owning team isn't interested in keeping.

Speaking of signing players....there seems to be alot of us wishing for Harding to be Howards backup...what about Gustavsson or Clemmensen? Johnson seems to have lost his backup spot in Pitt as well...Al Montoya? Even Marty Biron had a nice season...

Speaking of signing players....there seems to be alot of us wishing for Harding to be Howards backup...what about Gustavsson or Clemmensen? Johnson seems to have lost his backup spot in Pitt as well...Al Montoya? Even Marty Biron had a nice season...

I'd rather keep Joey Mac over all of those guys. Harding would be a definite upgrade.

The Preds have $38M in cap space, a handful of decent roleplayers already signed for cheap, and a few more that should be cheap to re-sign. They are prefectly capable of paying Weber $10M+ and still filling out a decent roster in the $55-60M range. You're not going to hurt them by forcing them to pay a little more than they want.

Giving up 4 firsts isn't just giving up 4 players we could protentially draft. It's also giving up the ability to trade those picks in the future. Between that and needing to significantly overpay to get him, you sacrifice a lot of flexibility. If he didn't mesh well with our system, or other holes in the lineup appear, we could still end up out of the playoffs...possibly giving up one or more top-10 picks. Maybe not likely, but it's a big risk to take for the right to overpay someone.

I'll say again, the RFA system is designed to very heaviliy favor the team owning the RFA rights. It gives a little bargaining power to the player, but little risk of the team losing its young assets. Offer sheets are very, very rarely worth making. It would have to be a team unable to match a fair offer or a player that the owning team isn't interested in keeping.

The Preds have refused in their entire history to spend higher than the cap floor, IIRC. Why would they loosen up the purse strings so much now?

Can't wait to read the "Phoenix: I still think it's a hockey market" chapter of Gary Bettman's autobiography. I'm guessing it's going to be chapter 11.

I'd rather keep Joey Mac over all of those guys. Harding would be a definite upgrade.

Problem with Mac is his health...if he didn't have the back issues, they wouldn't be looking for a back-up...would you still rather keep a lame Joey Mac or have a healthy Gustavsson? I too have Harding on the top of my list, but I think there are other places that he could wind up in starting role and then where do we go from there?

Problem with Mac is his health...if he didn't have the back issues, they wouldn't be looking for a back-up...would you still rather keep a lame Joey Mac or have a healthy Gustavsson? I too have Harding on the top of my list, but I think there are other places that he could wind up in starting role and then where do we go from there?

Gustavsson (aka the Monster) has heart problems. I'll take my chances with Joey Mac's wonky back over a goalie who may collapse on the ice at any given time. Plus I don't think Gustavsson is that good anyway. I think Kenny would like to upgrade the back-up goalie position but he will not sign a guy just for the sake of signing him. Basically Joey Mac is the back-up unless a guy like Harding becomes available. I don't know who else is available which makes any sense for the Wings to trade for or sign. Maybe Kenny has a few in mind. I don't know.